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Friday, June 30, 2017

Recently I enjoyed the privilege of meeting with Christian Medical Association members for a
media training session and discussed how people of faith can engage in public
policy—including on highly controversial issues such as abortion, assisted
suicide, sex, embryonic stem cell research, marriage and more.

My presentation to the doctors drew from the principles
outlined in my book and study guide on this topic, Faith
Steps.

The key principle of Faith
Steps is this: Receiving and
responding to God's revelation–by taking moral steps aligned with God's
principles–keeps our minds open to His enlightenment and our
hearts softened toward Him.

We all hold to a worldview--a
set of internal values and responses to questions about what's right, what's
wrong, and if there even is a right and a wrong.

The Christian worldview is based on the fact that God reveals
Himself and His principles to us:

a.through His naturalcreation and our consciences;

b.through His written
Word, the Scriptures;

c.through the incarnate
Word, Jesus Christ.

The Scriptures teach
that rejecting this revelation darkens our minds (as we reject the
truth about ourselves and our world) and hardens
our hearts (as we reject the living God who reaches out to us).

Receiving God’s
revelation can lead to a relationshipwith God and others. Examples:

·Staying
faithful to your spouse builds love and protects children.

·Children who honor parents benefit from strong family relationships.

·Helping
others makes you the kind of person everyone wants as a friend.

Ultimately these steps in
God's direction, this spiritual preparation of our minds and our hearts
through the decisions we make, can lead
us toward a real relationship with
God by His grace, through faith in Jesus Christ. Therefore, as we counsel friends toward God's principles and pursue justice and God's principles in law and public
policy, we are laying the circuitry for spiritual life.

Philosopher and theologian Francis
Schaeffer explains a principle that parallels Faith Steps in his classic, The God Who is There:

"The truth that we let in first is not a dogmatic
statement of the truth of the Scriptures but the truth of the external world
and the truth of what man himself is. This is what shows him his need. The
Scriptures then show him the nature of his lostness and the answer to it. This,
I am convinced, is the true order for our apologetics…."

As we counsel friends toward God's principles

and pursue justice and God's principles in law and public policy,

we are laying the circuitry for spiritual life.

To read more about how Faith
Steps work and how we can winsomely and effectively engage our
coworkers and our culture on controversial issues, visit Freedom2Care.